Nearly all of the game’s licensed tracks are covers and for the most part hit the nail on the head pretty well. However, there are a few sparse tracks with vocals that fall pretty far from the original. While it doesn’t ruin any sort of game play experience, it’s definitely noticeable and if that particular song happens to be a personal favorite, some players might take offense.
This year’s version continues to take great advantage of unsigned artists and ups the ante one step further by throwing in some surprise pop culture rock tracks courtesy of Strong Bad of Homestar Runner fame and the fictional band Dethklok featured in Adult Swim’s Metalocalypse. The unlicensed tracks serve once again as the meat of the game’s unlockables and can be purchased with your career mode gig money along with new guitars, skins, characters, videos and more.
Your gig money comes from the visually retooled career mode, which puts your band on a tour bus that travels to various locations around the United States represented by a number of new venues. The venues show off the extra attention to detail Harmonix placed into the game’s environments for this installment with small animations such as the rats running around the cellar. The crowds are a lot more lively this time around with much more animation and detail that more reflects the quality of your performance with items being thrown at the stage and more.
While the career progress stays primarily the same, the addition of encores adds a new bonus element to the game. Instead of merely playing a number of songs and moving to the next difficulty, Guitar Hero II asks if you want to step out on stage for more to tackle one last new bonus song in the difficulty.
Other than the additions, Guitar Hero is the same riff-slammin’ affair players were introduced to last year. The game attracts casual players like a magnet and even a non-gamer can fall in love with the raw simplicity and ability to not just play along with their favorite rock music, but create it. The training modes and easy difficulties are there for those finally getting around to pick up the game, but Harmonix hasn’t forgotten about the dedicated shredders either.
The difficulty is cranked up for sure in Guitar Hero II. The hard and expert difficulties are sure to ignite some fingers and new, blistering triple chords are introduced, requiring players to hold three simultaneous buttons to hit some notes. One drawback to the difficulties however, is the jump from medium to hard – I’ve already noticed many players having a very hard time getting into the hard charts due to the difficulty spike.
Article comments
1 - Zeroida Maxilax
Guitar Hero II rocks! They need to come out with a drum set so we can start a band!
2 - Bianca Marrero
You guys did great with Guitar hero, but i was suggesting you guys come out with Drum Heros! and make it the same but with different song and also with drums!